Obituary

Barbara Armstrong

In the late 1960s, our friend and colleague Barbara Armstrong, who has died aged 78, created and led a community studies department at Hackney College, in east London, which she ran until her retirement in 1986. Thanks to the courses she initiated, students who had not been successful at school found fulfilling jobs as social, health and childcare workers. She created the curriculum, a core part of which exposed students to experiences that traditionally belonged to the privileged: film, dance, music and travel.

Barbara's next venture, in the mid-1970s, was to establish a community nursery on the college premises. Yet the college, Hackney council and central government all refused her funding requests.

So Barbara went off to Brussels armed with elegance, a keen mind, and gentle but tenacious diplomacy, and there she was successful. After battles with site, heating and plumbing problems - in which her sense of humour stood her in good stead - the nursery was triumphantly inaugurated in 1978 by Trevor Huddleston, the then Bishop of Stepney. It was a model of good childcare provision, benefiting local families and offering students valuable work experience.

Another of Barbara's triumphs was the establishment of a community centre, at Darsham railway station in rural Suffolk, which became a haven for city-bound students, some of whom had never experienced life outside London. There, to this day, bemused commuters can still look through the windows of what was once the station house and observe groups of people of varying ages and ethnic backgrounds breakfasting or, in the evening, cooking huge stews of fish bought on nearby Dunwich beach.

Former Hackney students will also remember the annual winter trips to St John's in the Vale, in the Lake District, in the 1970s. The high point was sledging in bivvy bags on snow-covered hills behind the hostel.

Barbara was born in Poole, Dorset. Never willing to take no for an answer, she gathered around her colleagues for whom she was an inspiration and a mentor. She offered unswerving support and encouragement, treating each student and staff member with care and respect. In 1986, she retired to Scotland with her husband, Ronald, to whom she was married for almost 50 years. There they established themselves within a rural community, providing encouragement as well as practical support.

The lives of hundreds of students in east London were transformed by Barbara's extraordinary vision. She truly did make the world a better place.

· Ronald died in 2003. Barbara is survived by her son Andrew and his partner Kate, godchildren and friends of all ages.